What Killed Canada’s Biggest Company?

As Canada’s most valuable company, Nortel entered the 2000s with a boom. It would not survive the next decade. Part 2 of 2. Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: Part 1: I’m on sites! : People to thank: Charlie Arsenault – Assistant Editor @ThePlainBagel on Youtube for providing me with Nortel’s stock price data @ChrisHanel on Youtube for extensive Blender Geometry Nodes assistance @hotcyder on Youtube for the thumbnail Additional imagery licensed from Getty. Music from the Youtube Audio Library and Epidemic Sound. Additional music from @REPULSIVE and @WhitebatAudio 3D boat models are Royalty free assets: Edmund Fitzgerald Bell Picture licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license: :Bell_from_the_SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald_(36255067084).jpg A note on interviews: I spoke to over a dozen former Nortel employees for this series and those conversations provided many insights you’ll hear throughout. Because some of the interviewees still work in the industry I have kept all names anonymous. If there is a direct quote with a name attached it’s because it was a quote said publicly. Sources: The Bubble and the Bear – How Nortel Burst the Canadian Dream by Douglas Hunter (2002) Nortel Networks – How Innovation Created a Network Giant by Larry MacDonald (2000) No Fear: Tales of a Change Agent or Why I couldn’t Fix Nortel Networks by Tim Dempsey (2014) Silicon Valley North: A High Tech Cluster of Innovation and Entrepreneurship edited by Larisa V. Shavina (2004) Knights of the New Technology by David Thomas (1983) Adventures in Innovation: Inside the Rise and Fall of Nortel by John F. Tyson (2014) The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu (2011) 100 Days: The Rush to Judgement That Killed Nortel by James Bagnall (2013) For $ale to the Highest Bidder: Telecom Policy in Canada edited by Marita Moll and Leslie Regan Shade (2008) The Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications Industry in Canada, 1846-1956 by Jean-Guy Rens (2001) The Avro Arrow: For the Record by Palmiro Campagna (2019) The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T by Steve Coll (1986) Asleep at the Switch: The Political Economy of Federal Research and Development Policy since 1960 by Bruce Smardon (2014) Canadian Science, Technology and Innovation Policy by G. Bruce Doern, David Castle and Peter W.B. Phillips (2016) Reconcilable Differences: A History of Canada-US Relations by Stephen Azzi (2015) Pa Bell: The Meteoric Rise of Bell Canada Enterprises by Lawrence Surtees (1992) Random Excess: The Wild Ride of Michael Cowpland and Corel by Ross Laver (1998) : How America Lost its Mind and Money in the Internet Era by John Cassidy (2002) TV Interview with John Roth on Market Watch on CNBC, October 1999 Royal Canadian Air Farce Episode from February 23rd 2001 The Rise and demise of Lucent Technologies by William Lazonick and Edward March (2010) Brain Drain: Why do some post-secondary Graduates Choose to Work in the United States? By Brahim Bordarbat and Marie Connolly (2013) An Overview of the Demise of Nortel Networks and Key Lessons Learned: Systemic effects in environment, resilience and black-cloud formation, University of Ottawa (2014) Class, Nationality and the Roots of the Branch Plant Economy by Gordon Laxer (1986) Foreign Ownership and Myths about Canadian Development by Gordon Laxer (1985) Gale of “Creative Destruction” Engulfs Nortel by Sanjeev Kumar Sharma (2011) Nortel Technology Lens: Analysis and Observations by Peter MacKinnon, Peter Chapman, Hussein Mouftah, University of Ottawa (2015) Capital Gains Taxation in Canada 1972-2017: Evolution in a Federal Setting by Francois Vaillancourt and Anna Kerkhoff (2019) The 2010 Federal Budget – A summary of the key tax measure that have a direct impact on you – RBC Wealth Management Services, March 4th, 2010 The Changing Structure of American Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth by Ashish Arora, Sharon Belenzon, Andrea Patacconi, and Jungkyu Suh (2019) Do Tax Differences Cause the Brain Drain? By Don Wagner (2000) The Branch Plant Economy by Stephen Clarkson (1972) 0:00 The Fitzgerald 3:08 Brain Drain 12:15 Mind the GAAP 22:00 A Good Problem to Have 37:12 Red Ink 44:05 What’s Done is Dunn 57:53 Them’s the Breaks 1:14:28 Cookie Jar Accounting